If you make the trip to MN to pick your Scamp up, it is a good idea to camp near Backus one or two days and getting acquainted with the Scamp, and if anything serious comes up, call or stop back to ask questions. There are beautiful lakes there!
We picked our up, went on 9 trips, including a killer hailstorm in North Dakota, and the only thing so far was one of the door latches was loose - the center part that hold the male end broke. I replaced it, we'll see how it handles Arches national Park in a couple weeks. The hail storm was bad enough I couldn't see the road, I pulled over expecting the two day old trailer to be dented and leaking, but all it did was clean off the bugs! My neighbor has a large 5th wheel, and he is constantly fixing the roof or the electrical or something, and it takes him several hours to hook up and go - we can be on the road within an hour (packing and hook up) for a three or four day trip. I love our 13 foot deluxe!
(Advance apologies: pictures would help a lot, but I'm writing this down since it's fresh) As posted earlier, my 2022 16' Standard Scamp has a 3.7 Dometic fridge that has broken out of its mounting (3)! times. We have about 15000 road miles. I think I finally determined the problem more precisely. All 4 #8-2" sheetmetal screws are failing from shear. The issue is that only the front of the fridge is supported by the mounting. Going down the road, the bumps end up transmitting a good torque to the screws. Over time, the screws are fatigued, and once one shears off, the others must quickly follow.
Originally I blamed the use of particle board instead of solid wood, since only one screw was sheared off and the others had broken through the particle board sideways. I replaced the particle board with solid pine. It's stronger....but now all 4 screws have sheared off (the upper left corner was first - I noticed and intended to fix it when I got home, but in the next 750 miles, the other three all broke.
I suppose that to 'fix' this, the back/rear of the fridge needs to be supported. Rubber shock mounts would be great but there seems to be no room for them with the current enclosure design. The fridge sits on top of a particleboard shelf (small utility cubby is underneath). Above is about a 4 3/4" air gap, then the particleboard shelf of the utility cabinet above. So my intended fix is to somehow attach the rear of the fridge to the bottom shelf, and/or with a 4 3/4 " rigid foam filler on the top side to fix it against the top shelf. I don't think that's a 100,000 mile solution, but it's the best I can think of right now.
If this isn't done, the fridge is 100% guaranteed to break out of its mounting. I'll try to contact Scamp about this to see if maybe the factory has updated the assembly process and post what I find.
UPDATE 6/15/2023: Per Erica at Scamp, they no longer sell the 3.7 cu ft unit. Oh well. My 'solution' was to add a 4.75" thick piece of foam above the back of the fridge, wedged below the cabinet shelf above. That should help reduce the bouncing around going down the road. Secondly, I will periodically (every 3000-4000 miles) replace the (4) #8 2" sheet metal screws that secure the front of the fridge to the pine stringers on the side. Since there is no way to prevent the screws from excessive fatigue, this seems the easiest and cheapest mitigation I can think of. Hopefully it'll suffice.
Thank athearn2, that's a good suggestion. We've not had our tires balanced yet and that may very well be contributing to our issues! (We do have screws backing out left and right every trip!)
If you make the trip to MN to pick your Scamp up, it is a good idea to camp near Backus one or two days and getting acquainted with the Scamp, and if anything serious comes up, call or stop back to ask questions. There are beautiful lakes there!
-Paul
2004 Scamp 19 Deluxe,
2021 Tacoma, Double Cab, 6 cyl. 4WD
Colorado
We picked our up, went on 9 trips, including a killer hailstorm in North Dakota, and the only thing so far was one of the door latches was loose - the center part that hold the male end broke. I replaced it, we'll see how it handles Arches national Park in a couple weeks. The hail storm was bad enough I couldn't see the road, I pulled over expecting the two day old trailer to be dented and leaking, but all it did was clean off the bugs! My neighbor has a large 5th wheel, and he is constantly fixing the roof or the electrical or something, and it takes him several hours to hook up and go - we can be on the road within an hour (packing and hook up) for a three or four day trip. I love our 13 foot deluxe!
(Advance apologies: pictures would help a lot, but I'm writing this down since it's fresh) As posted earlier, my 2022 16' Standard Scamp has a 3.7 Dometic fridge that has broken out of its mounting (3)! times. We have about 15000 road miles. I think I finally determined the problem more precisely. All 4 #8-2" sheetmetal screws are failing from shear. The issue is that only the front of the fridge is supported by the mounting. Going down the road, the bumps end up transmitting a good torque to the screws. Over time, the screws are fatigued, and once one shears off, the others must quickly follow.
Originally I blamed the use of particle board instead of solid wood, since only one screw was sheared off and the others had broken through the particle board sideways. I replaced the particle board with solid pine. It's stronger....but now all 4 screws have sheared off (the upper left corner was first - I noticed and intended to fix it when I got home, but in the next 750 miles, the other three all broke.
I suppose that to 'fix' this, the back/rear of the fridge needs to be supported. Rubber shock mounts would be great but there seems to be no room for them with the current enclosure design. The fridge sits on top of a particleboard shelf (small utility cubby is underneath). Above is about a 4 3/4" air gap, then the particleboard shelf of the utility cabinet above. So my intended fix is to somehow attach the rear of the fridge to the bottom shelf, and/or with a 4 3/4 " rigid foam filler on the top side to fix it against the top shelf. I don't think that's a 100,000 mile solution, but it's the best I can think of right now.
If this isn't done, the fridge is 100% guaranteed to break out of its mounting. I'll try to contact Scamp about this to see if maybe the factory has updated the assembly process and post what I find.
UPDATE 6/15/2023: Per Erica at Scamp, they no longer sell the 3.7 cu ft unit. Oh well. My 'solution' was to add a 4.75" thick piece of foam above the back of the fridge, wedged below the cabinet shelf above. That should help reduce the bouncing around going down the road. Secondly, I will periodically (every 3000-4000 miles) replace the (4) #8 2" sheet metal screws that secure the front of the fridge to the pine stringers on the side. Since there is no way to prevent the screws from excessive fatigue, this seems the easiest and cheapest mitigation I can think of. Hopefully it'll suffice.
Tom
I Think you need to balance the tires if they are not already. There is no end to the screws that can come loose with unbalanced tires.
Thank athearn2, that's a good suggestion. We've not had our tires balanced yet and that may very well be contributing to our issues! (We do have screws backing out left and right every trip!)
Tom
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